Tuttle et al v Audiophile Music Direct

[Iving]

12 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This is the crux of my position. Deciding which information is useful in making up one’s mind is fraught with issues. 

 

I can see that. Perhaps worthy of a thread.

 

But here the issue is MoFi and whether they were honest, and for what reasons/with what motives if not, and with what consequences, and whether legal redress obtainable.

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This is the crux of my position. Deciding which information is useful in making up one’s mind is fraught with issues. 

 

This reminds me of Winston Churchill's remark about democracy, in which he said it was the worst form of government ever invented by humans - except for all the others. 🙂

 

Absolutely there are issues with putting information out there and just saying "Let people make up their own minds." But I'm hard pressed to think of a better alternative. Knowing music is the product of people or companies you trust is information - information that's particularly significant to you (and to many others). Provenance is significant information to some in this thread (and to many others).

 

Much as we'd like to tell other folks what's important, they'll insist on having their own opinions about what they prefer. 🙂

[Jud]

11 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Much of the process documentation for recordings is for marketing and has nothing to do with ensuring a specific result. 
 

Ansel Adams with an iPhone 3 camera will shoot better photos than me with a new gigapixel camera. We could document the tech and the process, and neither would be beneficial for consumers, other than to prove its all about the people. 

 

In the audio realm, this doesn't always work out. Rick Rubin has produced masterpieces that show the recording artist to advantage (Johnny Cash) and stuff that is so compressed as to be borderline unlistenable (Red Hot Chile Peppers). We can play the same game with lots of producers, and some artists.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

In the audio realm, this doesn't always work out. Rick Rubin has produced masterpieces that show the recording artist to advantage (Johnny Cash) and stuff that is so compressed as to be borderline unlistenable (Red Hot Chile Peppers). We can play the same game with lots of producers, and some artists.

Absolutely, but I believe it’s the best way. 
 

If Analogue Productions releases an album, I will bet it’s the best version of that album I’ve ever heard. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

This reminds me of Winston Churchill's remark about democracy, in which he said it was the worst form of government ever invented by humans - except for all the others. 🙂

 

Absolutely there are issues with putting information out there and just saying "Let people make up their own minds." But I'm hard pressed to think of a better alternative. Knowing music is the product of people or companies you trust is information - information that's particularly significant to you (and to many others). Provenance is significant information to some in this thread (and to many others).

 

Much as we'd like to tell other folks what's important, they'll insist on having their own opinions about what they prefer. 🙂

That’s where my balance argument comes into play. 

[Iving]

45 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ansel Adams with an iPhone 3 camera will shoot better photos than me with a new gigapixel camera. We could document the tech and the process, and neither would be beneficial for consumers, other than to prove its all about the people. 

 

Superficially I might say that someone else will prefer a different photographer - and yet another person will think Ansel sucks - etc etc. And so who is right? Answer = nobody - actually. And so what can we do but give everyone who needs to make a confidence/purchasing decision enough information to make an informed decision.

 

I add as a sidenote. Over the years I think it has been on and between the lines at this Forum that we make our own minds up about other people's reports on equipment, purchases, SQ etc - and indeed that is the way the world is. We have to make grown up judgements all the time. And the higher the stakes - usually - the more info we want. And what is high stakes varies amongst us, but we are all agreed about facilitating our enjoyment of music.

 

But mostly this post is to say that I think I know where you want to go when you say it's about the people. An old-fashioned notion perhaps. A counterculture one these days. An uphill effort given how the world has become more obsessed with money than principles in recent decades. You want to highlight good workmanship. The honour of the handshake and the value of one's word and so on.

 

Well if I am right:

A. More power to you;

but,

B. MoFi's DSD vinyl records have done nothing but reverse this/your cause.

 

Perhaps this will be the MoFi hangover. A commercial-culture one. Not a legal one.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Iving said:

But mostly this post is to say that I think I know where you want to go when you say it's about the people. An old-fashioned notion perhaps. A counterculture one these days. An uphill effort given how the world has become more obsessed with money than principles in recent decades. You want to highlight good workmanship. The honour of the handshake and the value of one's word and so on.

I love it! Thanks for trying to understand my position :~)

 

4 minutes ago, Iving said:

MoFi's DSD vinyl records have done nothing but reverse this/your cause.

No. It proves my case. Many people believe the end product was the best. Let the engineers figure out how to make the best albums. MoFi knows what it’s doing. 

[Iving]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I love it! Thanks for trying to understand my position :~)

No. It proves my case. Many people believe the end product was the best. Let the engineers figure out how to make the best albums. MoFi knows what it’s doing. 

 

Well it serves me right for being nice. I completely disagree with you!

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, Iving said:

 

Well it serves me right for being nice. I completely disagree with you!

I love that even more. A friendly disagreement is how many of us learn and enrich our lives. 

[Iving]

Whether DSD vinyl is a good product or not 

 

is a totally different issue to

 

whether record buyers were deceived.

[Iving]

5 minutes ago, Iving said:

Whether DSD vinyl is a good product or not 

 

is a totally different issue to

 

whether record buyers were deceived.

 

The former is moot. (And you, Chris, seem uncharacteristically  relying on 3rd party reports.)

 

The second issue - deception - is offensive anyway. Legal relevance or not.

 

No way on God's earth am I convinced "it's about the people" if those same people have conned me or anybody else.

 

Not ever.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Iving said:

 

No way on God's earth am I convinced "it's about the people" if those same people have conned me or anybody else.

 

Not ever.

Your statement relies on people. They deceived you. Now you know not to trust them. 

[Iving]

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Your statement relies on people. They deceived you. Now you know not to trust them. 

 

Well not literally in this case since I am not a victim.

 

My point is that MoFi (or any other business) if dishonest especially large scale results in a somewhat generalised scepticism in the market as a whole.

 

Tarring with the same brush whether justified or not.

 

The commercial climate is affected.

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 minutes ago, Iving said:

 

Well not literally in this case since I am not a victim.

 

My point is that MoFi (or any other business) if dishonest especially large scale results in a somewhat generalised scepticism in the market as a whole.

 

Tarring with the same brush whether justified or not.

 

The commercial climate is affected.

Understood. This also shows why some information can be a disservice. We all can be foolish about what we think makes the best recording, product, or whatever. We tar all products with the same brush. AAA, DSD, ESS chips, etc…

[Iving]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Understood. This also shows why some information can be a disservice. We all can be foolish about what we think makes the best recording, product, or whatever. We tar all products with the same brush. AAA, DSD, ESS chips, etc…

 

I don't disagree with this.

 

But buyers have a moral obligation etc only to themselves.

 

Sellers have ethical etc obligations to buyers usually translated into law.

[Confused]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

At some point in our lives we have to trust other people. The people I trust have proven themselves to me and I’ve often reached the same conclusions as them on other matters. Not bulletproof logic, but plenty good for me and this hobby I so enjoy.  
 

Provenance has zero to do with sound quality. That’s a hill I’ll die on. For example, we have the full provenance of Jack White’s album A Letter Home. An AAA recording for sure. Even direct to disc!

 

The above I agree with.

 

That said, we also need to establish who not to trust.

 

As an example, I do not trust Bob Stuart that much. In the past, I think I would trusted much of what he might say, but not now, any past trust or respect I might have had for the man is now lost. I think he has lied about MQA. Even if he one day came clean about MQA, I still think I would not trust him, he lied once, why should I believe him in the future?

 

As for MoFi, personally I would trust them to produce a good sounding product. I understand why they did what they did and can rationalise that it was actually for good reason. I guess for me this is the difference with our Bob, the reasons and the quality of the end product are different. Others might not think the same way. 

 

Others might think that they have been lied to by MoFi once, so why should they believe them in the future? Trust is lost.

 

I guess as @Ivingsuggests, people will make up their own mind based on the data available. It will not always be the same conclusion though.

[PYP]

8 hours ago, Confused said:

Last week I was reading about some master tapes. Apparently it is believed that these tapes are now so fragile that they can now only be played once, and then they will be destroyed by the act of playback itself. The big question is how to save recordings like this. How to treat the tapes before their last play, what is the best machine to play them on, and indeed what format to use for the transfer? DSD, DXD, something else? Once we have that digital transfer, at least this can be stored, copied, backed up, and it could last for ever. But if the transfer can only be done once, we need to be sure the best method for transfer is used.

Exactly.  Preservation of our musical heritage is a very important issue (just 4 pages and worth reading):  https://www.aes.org/journal/suppmat/hart_2001_7.pdf   

 

This excellent article goes in depth beyond more recent recordings, but this part about the Grateful Dead might be of interest to folks here:

 

"Can preservation and digitization be good business? Indeed, and the Grateful Dead is a good example. For nearly 30 years we recorded almost every show, over 2400 performances. Now we are at a point where many of our tapes are decaying, and so we are in the process of preparing for mass digitization. Of course, when we talk of the digitization process, it is not just a simple “let’s- throw-it-into-the-digital-domain.” Proper analog-to-digital conversion, Sonic Solutions preparation (see Fig. 1), and careful handling and storage of the source tapes will be necessary to provide for an uplifting and accurate view of these memorable artifacts.

 

A number of prized tapes in the Grateful Dead vault (Fig. 2) were recorded during the years between 1976 and 1981. Much of the magnetic tape manufactured during that period of time has exhibited a problem called shedding. When those tapes are played, they will either squeal loudly as they pass through the tape guides, or they may not play for longer than a few seconds. The problem is mainly due to the use of the polyurethane binders that were introduced with the Ampex 406/456 series of tapes. With the stress of time and humidity, the binder absorbs moisture. The urethane reacts with moisture, migrates to the surface of the tape, and becomes a 

sticky residue. The end result is that the tape is unplayable.

 

The situation can be corrected very simply by baking. We have a custom-built convection oven (Figs. 3 and 4) that keeps a constant temperature (+- 1/10 of a degree over a specified time). We can bake a number of tapes at a time (four 10-inch reels of 2-inch tape or ten 7-inch reels of 1/4-inch tape). We bake them for 12 hours at 130o F, with 30- minute warm-up and cool-down times. The oven does not really need to be very elaborate. Any commercial convection oven and timer can be used. The temperature and time of baking can be varied slightly, although it is safer to go longer with a lower temperature."

 

"Currently we believe the best method [for digital transfers ]would be to use our 192-kHz, 24-bit converter and the Sonic Solutions workstation to create W A V data files, not audio files. These can then be stored on L TO (linear-tape open) car- tridges or on some optical medium such as DVD-R. During the process, a number of CD, DAT, and MP3 ver- sions can be created for listening and for downloading purposes."

[Iving]

New case "Stiles": https://www.law.com/radar/

 

Vinyl record seller Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab was hit with a consumer class action Thursday in Illinois Northern District Court. The case, brought by Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz and Bursor & Fisher, contends that Mobile albums on vinyl which are marketed as 'purely analog,' or made from original master recordings, have actually been produced from digital files since 2011. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 1:22-cv-04405, Stiles v. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Inc.

[JoeWhip]

Just the old lawyer in me, but these digital step LPs were made from the original master tapes or one can reasonably argue that they were. MoFi made the transfer to DSD from the original master analog tapes not some second or third generation tape . If they can prove the that transfer is transparent to the master tape…. was it deceptive? Yep, by omission . For me, the remedy is a refund which does not require class certification. That would only make the lawyers rich.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Iving said:

New case "Stiles": https://www.law.com/radar/

 

Vinyl record seller Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab was hit with a consumer class action Thursday in Illinois Northern District Court. The case, brought by Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz and Bursor & Fisher, contends that Mobile albums on vinyl which are marketed as 'purely analog,' or made from original master recordings, have actually been produced from digital files since 2011. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 1:22-cv-04405, Stiles v. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Inc.

 

They haven't been "hit with a class action" yet, unless a class has already been certified.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

was it deceptive? Yep, by omission . For me, the remedy is a refund which does not require class certification.

 

Unless they can show the purchasers are too numerous and difficult to find.  But yeah, a refund of the purchase price of a couple of albums minus the lawyers' cut won't amount to much.

[Rt66indierock]

2 hours ago, Iving said:

New case "Stiles": https://www.law.com/radar/

 

Vinyl record seller Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab was hit with a consumer class action Thursday in Illinois Northern District Court. The case, brought by Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz and Bursor & Fisher, contends that Mobile albums on vinyl which are marketed as 'purely analog,' or made from original master recordings, have actually been produced from digital files since 2011. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 1:22-cv-04405, Stiles v. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Inc.

 

Yawn, just another case that should be dismissed.

[PYP]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

But yeah, a refund of the purchase price of a couple of albums minus the lawyers' cut won't amount to much.

Will they then sue the lawyers (perhaps for not telling them how little they would get)?  

[Iving]

19 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Yawn, just another case that should be dismissed.

 

Should?

 

Will?

 

I know you know that sh.tv are running to 879 pages already on this - and folks are not so dismissive of the merits of the case against MoFi.

 

Also - here's a recent WBF screenshot showing (if true) plaintiff money on class recruitment.

 

 

I'm no lawyer - far less proficient in US law - but I bet $10 MoFi will lose a lawsuit on this - just to demonstrate which side I'm on - and where I think this is all headed.

 

Give me 10:1 odds on my bet.

[Rt66indierock]

5 hours ago, PYP said:

Exactly.  Preservation of our musical heritage is a very important issue (just 4 pages and worth reading):  https://www.aes.org/journal/suppmat/hart_2001_7.pdf   

 

This excellent article goes in depth beyond more recent recordings, but this part about the Grateful Dead might be of interest to folks here:

 

"Can preservation and digitization be good business? Indeed, and the Grateful Dead is a good example. For nearly 30 years we recorded almost every show, over 2400 performances. Now we are at a point where many of our tapes are decaying, and so we are in the process of preparing for mass digitization. Of course, when we talk of the digitization process, it is not just a simple “let’s- throw-it-into-the-digital-domain.” Proper analog-to-digital conversion, Sonic Solutions preparation (see Fig. 1), and careful handling and storage of the source tapes will be necessary to provide for an uplifting and accurate view of these memorable artifacts.

 

A number of prized tapes in the Grateful Dead vault (Fig. 2) were recorded during the years between 1976 and 1981. Much of the magnetic tape manufactured during that period of time has exhibited a problem called shedding. When those tapes are played, they will either squeal loudly as they pass through the tape guides, or they may not play for longer than a few seconds. The problem is mainly due to the use of the polyurethane binders that were introduced with the Ampex 406/456 series of tapes. With the stress of time and humidity, the binder absorbs moisture. The urethane reacts with moisture, migrates to the surface of the tape, and becomes a 

sticky residue. The end result is that the tape is unplayable.

 

The situation can be corrected very simply by baking. We have a custom-built convection oven (Figs. 3 and 4) that keeps a constant temperature (+- 1/10 of a degree over a specified time). We can bake a number of tapes at a time (four 10-inch reels of 2-inch tape or ten 7-inch reels of 1/4-inch tape). We bake them for 12 hours at 130o F, with 30- minute warm-up and cool-down times. The oven does not really need to be very elaborate. Any commercial convection oven and timer can be used. The temperature and time of baking can be varied slightly, although it is safer to go longer with a lower temperature."

 

"Currently we believe the best method [for digital transfers ]would be to use our 192-kHz, 24-bit converter and the Sonic Solutions workstation to create W A V data files, not audio files. These can then be stored on L TO (linear-tape open) car- tridges or on some optical medium such as DVD-R. During the process, a number of CD, DAT, and MP3 ver- sions can be created for listening and for downloading purposes."

 

Yes and note the date, 2001. People were talking about the issues with analog tapes before that. A reasonable consumer would know this.